The invention relates to housings that are particularly well suited for use with airbag control devices. The subject housing includes a bottom plate, a top plate, a rear wall, two side walls, and receiving elements arranged inside the housing for receiving at least one printed circuit board. The subject housing further includes a terminal element arranged at the front side of the housing and at least one connection element.
The general state of the art includes design of such housings comprising several components. The components are respectively adapted to the installation conditions. This results in substantial inventory maintenance costs. Additionally, the several components must be arranged so that the components are installed in a functionally correct manner.
In contrast thereto, it is an object of the invention to provide a housing of the aforementioned type in such a fashion so that the result is an element which can readily and quickly be adapted to its installation environment.
The above object and others are solved according to the invention in that the bottom plate and/or the cover plate of the housing is selectively connectable with one or more mounting plate(s) which is/are attachable to a support. The housing is of a single-piece construction and the bottom plate and/or cover plate of the housing is provided with projections. The projections are arranged and impressed inside recesses of the mounting plate. This produces the benefit that by means of the mounting plate, which is adapted to the mounting conditions, only a single housing is needed for use in a wide range of applications. Thereby, the housing can be attached, in any fashion, to an associated support by merely selecting a suitable mounting plate. Thus, only one housing type is required. The singular housing type is attachable to the support via the mounting plate. The mounting plate is adapted to fit the particular installation environment. Said mounting plate additionally effectuates a reinforcement function resulting, overall, in a stable structure.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, the projections extend in several parallel rows and/or lines. The projections are manufactured from ribs formed onto the bottom plate and/or the cover plate of the housing. This results in efficient manufacturing since the ribs and/or rows of ribs are formed integrally with the housing, as a single piece construction. Depending upon the installation requirements, the ribs or rows are machined, e.g. by milling, so that the locations and arrangement of the projections correspond to the recesses formed in the mounting plate.
Portions of the mounting plates selectively extend, at least in part, beyond the bottom plate and/or the cover plate to present attachment regions as desired. These attachment regions can, for example, serve as flanges that include at least one transverse opening, by which it is possible to attach the metal housing, e.g. an airbag control device housing, to the appropriate associated support in a functionally correct manner.
According to a first embodiment of the invention, the mounting plate is selectively fastened at either the bottom plate or the cover plate of the housing, and includes three attachment regions. In this arrangement, the mounting plate is attachable to the bottom plate or to the cover plate of the housing, and can be rotated by 180xc2x0 with respect to its original position and relative to the cover or bottom plate of the housing. This arrangement of the mounting plate enables many mounting combinations, so that the metal housing can be installed in many types of motor vehicles without requiring vehicle-specific housing configurations.
In order to guarantee excellent control of the circuit board within the housing using the aforementioned attachment, in another embodiment of the invention, the side walls of the single-piece housing and the rear wall include guide elements for receiving and holding the circuit board. In a preferred arrangement, the guide elements of the side walls are preferably grooves defined by the side walls and the guide elements of the rear wall are electrically conducting contacts.
According to another aspect of the invention, the contacts define a fork-shaped area for contacting and supporting the circuit board and an area which is connectable with the rear wall and includes at least one opening that positions and presses together with a projection of the rear wall.
In order to provide another installation aid, in yet another embodiment, the terminating element is selectively connected via at least one detent connection with the front side of the housing. In this arrangement, detent units are provided in the area of the front side of the housing as desired. The detent units clip into corresponding detent grooves of the terminating element which is preferably made of plastic. In this way it is possible to connect, in simple fashion, the terminating element with the single-piece housing in a functionally correct manner.